COLIN Doyle's delight at making his league debut for Blues was tempered by the manner of their defeat.

COLIN Doyle's delight at making his league debut for Blues was tempered by the manner of their defeat.

"I had a few kicks that went to my left or went wide but at the end of the day I was quite pleased, I thought I did OK," said the 21-year-old, who replaced hip injury victim Maik Taylor in goal.

"But it's not about me, it's about getting the result. No-one is happy that we lost.

"All the lads were devastated. We came for one thing - three points - but we didn't play as well as we normally can."

Cardiff rocked Blues with a whirlwind start and Doyle admitted that Blues just didn't respond well enough.

Taking the opposition's best because of their status is something that is going to be familiar for Blues this season.

Doyle nodded: "We got relegated from the Premiership and we're probably favourites to go straight back up. Every place we go teams will be thinking 'right, these were Premiership last year' and they will raise their game.

"It's going to be tough and on Saturday it didn't look like we were up for the challenge."

Doyle added: "We knew what it was going to be like. We knew it was a sell-out and the crowd would get behind them.

"They started well, they had a few early shots and, to be fair, first 20 minutes we struggled. We gave a sloppy first goal away and none of us were too pleased with that."

Blues were dozing when Cardiff executed a short corner routine in the 12th minute to go ahead through Joe Ledley.

"We thought they would play it short, play it back then cross it. But their lad got to the byline. We try that sometimes and it doesn't come off; it came off for them."

Doyle was backed up on the bench by first-year professional Adam Legzdins, 19, from Stafford.

The Irish under-21 international from Cork said he had few nerves because his loan spells during the past two seasons had done him a power of good.